Here's the thing. Instead of bitching and moaning about the ACA (a plan in which I think we all agree is crap) and acting like spoiled little kids who didn't the toy they wanted at Toys R Us, why don't these jack ass Republicans work on amendments to the bill? That's how this government works, not shutting the whole fucker down because they lost.
Have any of you opened an account at healthcare.gov and looked at actual pricing for your situation? From the comments I'm reading, I would guess that, at most, maybe 2 of you have. I'm a lifelong conservative republican. However, this thing is the law. Most of us have insurance through our jobs so we will be affected little if any. Those of you like mobius and supa can still shop around at any insurer you like. Some are on healthcare.gov, some aren't. On it's surface, for the non-poor and responsible among us, we keep insurance on those we are responsible for. The ACA puts comparison shopping tools at your fingertips. Try them. You may be surprised. I don't doubt that there are many situations like supa's who was being responsible and using his HSA to maximum benefit. This should be expanded. On the other end of the spectrum, indigent people go to the ER for a snotty nose, driving up costs for the rest of us. Some solution has to be found. I guess with the ACA, we will subsidize their care with higher premiums. But, we should see lower costs at the doctors' offices since they won't have as many nonpaying clients. In the end, some people who have never had insurance will get it (and the govt will subsidize it). Others will pay more. Let's right legislation to make the overall system better, not defund the govt and act like spoiled brats. I am so sick and tired of partisan politics. I wish we could kick every one of them out in one fell swoop and just start over.
Just remember that we have been paying for the indigent already through funding the charity hospital system, free county clinics, and through higher hospital bills for the uninsured that seek treatment in emergency rooms. Those costs will go down or disappear under ACA. And our insurance premiums have been rising at an unsustainable rate for 20 years anyway with no Obamacare bogeyman to blame. But the debt ceiling is another matter entirely. The government has to be funded. Using blackmail to get something that cannot be gotten legally through the legislative process is untenable. The last shutdown threat cost us our credit rating and this shutdown is costing us our national credibility and reliability. Obama will not concede this one. Giving in to blackmailers always results in more blackmail. Already this country's discretionary spending is lower than 2008, Bush's last budget year, despite the fact that lowered spending has hurt the economic recovery. The Tea Party has already accomplished its stated goal of reducing spending. Why can't they just declare victory and go home? Because its not about results to them, its about ideological warfare. All or nothing, never-give-an-inch intransigence. The antithesis to the collegial democracy envisioned by the founders that has worked so well for two centuries. I don't think they even know what they want this time. Just attention apparently. But the Tea Party is showing us something unintended . . . that they are the instrument for government gridlock. They keep saying that they are doing what "The American People" want. Yet the American people very much do not want gridlock and shutdown. The American people voted for Obama and the representatives that voted the ACA into law. The Tea Party, in their single-issue fixation on spending, cannot pass the laws that they want and are making themselves into a problem for the left and right. I see a split with the main Republican Party in the near future, perhaps right before the 2016 election, because the GOP can no longer allow its extremists to drive the bus into the right-lane ditch in the primaries. Just like the Bill Clinton democrats moved to the center and marginalized the extreme left Kennedy liberals to get their own bus out of the left-lane ditch, the survival of the Republican party will require a major move towards the middle, where most Americans vote. Boehner better find his balls and get control of these anarchist radicals or cut them loose entirely.
Exactly. Here's another thing I was thinking. How can people bitch and complain about freeloaders and not bring up the biggest freeloaders of all..... Congress and the Senate. We pay them to do what? Absolutely nothing. They should be doing their jobs, and amending parts of the ACA, making it better, but they wanna get a free check and do no work. It's time that THOSE freeloaders stop getting a government check for sitting on their asses and doing nothing.
well said, Kyle. thing is, I would love it if we could just have an honest debate about healthcare because it is that important and it should not be a partisan issue. good health is something that we all want, regardless of political stripes. I have been an outspoken supporter of the President but even I will admit that I don't think this hyper partisanship will end until he is out of office.
I am all for setting the salaries of the congress, senate, presidency and vice-presidency at the level of the average household income in America. While many of them are already wealthy before entering the political spectrum at the very least their check every two weeks would be a stark reminder of what the rest of the nation is experiencing on pay day. Printed on their check stubs should be the price of a gallon of gasoline, the price of a gallon of milk and the price of a loaf of bread along with a few other key metrics.
No, these guys have tremendous responsibility and should be paid accordingly. But their benefits package should be no better than any other federal employee. We need to elect more average people and not so many lawyers and multi-millionaires. That is on us. Joe Average won't run if it can't pay his bills and be worth his effort.
